American Aquarium Announce Extensive 2024 US Tour & New Shooter Jennings-Produced Album

American Aquarium have a new Shooter Jennings-produced album on the way, The Fear of Standing Still, due out on July 26 Losing Side Records/Thirty Tigers, previewed with lead single “Crier.” The band is also set to kick off an extensive tour around the album in August with dates stretching late into the fall.

For The Fear of Standing Still, American Aquarium teamed back up with Jennings — who helmed the band’s 2020 record, Lamentations. The new LP sees the North Carolina alt-country outfit — frontman BJ Barham, guitarist Shane Boeker, pedal-steel guitarist Neil Jones, keyboardist Rhett Huffman, drummer Ryan Van Fleet and bassist Alden Hedges — leaning more into their rock side.

“For us the sweet spot is when you’ve got a rock band that makes you scream along to every word, and it’s not until you’re coming down at three a.m. that you realize those words are saying something real about your life,” Barham stated. “That’s what made us fall in love with music in the first place, and that’s the goal in everything we do.”

“In our live show the band’s like a freight train that never lets up, and for this record I really wanted to showcase how big and anthemic we can be,” Barham added.

Behind that big sound, Barham focuses on both personal and sociocultural issues including “the complexity of Southern identity, the intersection of generational trauma and the dismantling of reproductive rights,” as per a press release.

On lead single “Crier,” Barham and co-writer Stephen Wilson Jr. take aim at “worn-out ideals of masculine behavior.” Barham elaborated:

“I wanted to send the message that it’s not natural to bottle everything up inside, because all of us are meant to feel. I don’t think anyone’s going to get through that first listen of ‘Crier’ and think, ‘Wow, what a great song about disrupting the cycle of toxic masculinity! It seems more likely that it’ll make them want to dance and jump around, and then when they put the headphones on and listen a little closer to the lyrics, that’s when they’ll start to understand what we’re talking about.”

Watch a performance video for “Crier” below:

Following previously announced spring and summer dates, including a stop at Red Rocks with Turnpike Troubadours, American Aquarium kick off The Fear of Standing Still U.S. Tour on August 29 in Raleigh, North Carolina ahead of two more home state plays in Wilmington and Charlotte.

Among the many stops on the band’s tour around their new record are New York City, Nashville, the Chicago area, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Orlando, Austin, St. Louis and Memphis. The trek will wrap on December 15 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Following various presales, most tickets for the new dates go on sale Friday, May 3 at 10 a.m. local time.